Applying the Five Domains welfare framework to laying hens and broilers reveals both the breadth of welfare challenges and practical pathways for improvement across nutrition, environment, health, behavior, and mental state.
The Five Domains framework applied to poultry production reveals how welfare challenges in individual domains compound to create overall negative welfare states. A hen with keel bone fractures (Domain 3), no dust bathing substrate (Domain 4), in high-ammonia air (Domain 2) experiences a combined welfare deficit that no single improvement fully addresses. The framework also points toward positive welfare — a hen with access to pasture, appropriate nutrition, good health, and full behavioral expression experiences a positive overall mental state. This integrated view helps prioritize interventions by identifying which domains are most compromised and where improvements will have the greatest overall welfare impact.